Kansas State Fair
- About
The annual Kansas State Fair begins the Friday following Labor Day and lasts for 10 days at the Kansas State Fairgrounds in Hutchinson, Kansas.
The mission statement of the Fair is:
“To promote and showcase Kansas agriculture, industry and culture, to create opportunity for commercial activity, and to provide an educational and entertaining experience that is the pride of all Kansans.”
The largest single event in the State, the Fair annually attracts approximately 350,000 people from all 105 Kansas counties and several other states.
The Fair offers tremendous opportunities for commerce with over 1,000 commercial vendor locations; for competition, with close to 30,000 entries in various competitive exhibit departments; for education, through its Kansas’ Largest Classroom field trip program; and for entertainment with strolling and stage entertainment in addition to the national acts performing at the Nex-Tech Wireless Grandstand.In addition to the annual State Fair, the Fairgrounds’ facilities are utilized throughout the year for a wide array of events, including horse and livestock shows, trade shows, flea markets, wedding receptions, family reunions, and company picnics, to name just a few.
- History
- In January of 1873 - when the prairie town of Hutchinson was barely one year old - a group of businessmen met and organized the Reno County Agricultural Society. On September 23-24 that year, the society hosted a fair which was held in a small wooden livery stable behind the town's only bank on the northwest corner of Sherman and Main. Encouraged by the success of this first event, plans began for a bigger fair the following year, with the society proposing a tax levy to support the event. Voters were less than enthusiastic with the idea. Whether because of this public disapproval or because of the devastating visitation of hordes of hungry grasshoppers that summer, the fair of 1874 was never held. Undaunted, the Agricultural Society found acreage southeast of where the state reformatory would later be located, paid cash for the grounds, and on September 28, 29and 30 of 1875, presented the First Annual Reno County Fair. It featured 20 classes for entries, with most awards in the form of certificates, and a few $5 cash prizes. This infant local fair, only one of many held throughout Kansas, was destined to become the present Kansas State Fair. In 1878 new grounds were purchased just north of Eastside Cemetery (for $50 an acre), and fairs were held there through the early 1880s. Reorganized and renamed The Arkansas Valley Fair Association, the fair was moved back to its previous grounds for the 1885 event. These grounds southeast of the present Hutchinson Correctional Facility grew to impressive size during the late 1880s and 1890s. New buildings were added nearly every year. A fence surrounded the property and the half-mile racetrack was praised as one of the finest in the state. Special streetcar tracks for the new horse and mule-drawn vehicles of the Rapid Transit Company were extended 5-1/2 miles out into the area.
- Places to Stay